The Pivot to the Arctic

A Draft of White Paper for the Trump Administration

by Alexander Murinson (November 2016)

This paper will outline why the new Trump administration should pivot its global policy towards North, namely the Arctic region. It will provide recommendations about what measures the Trump administration should undertake in pursuing this “pivot to the North policy.”

Background

[1] Since then the US Nation Snow and Ice Data Center confirmed that May’s this year ice extent is also the lowest ever recorded. This trend will re-shuffle American strategic priorities and global policy. If now the Suez Canal remains one of the key global choke points, its significance is bound to decrease.[2] The focus of US global needs to be re-adjusted in view of this major geopolitical trend.

Race for the Arctic

The U.S., which held the two-year rotating chairmanship of the eight-nation Arctic Council in 2015, has not ignored the Arctic, but critics say the U.S. is lagging behind the other seven: Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Canada and Denmark, through the semiautonomous territory of Greenland.

At a meeting before Thanksgiving with Secretary of State John Kerry, Murkowski suggested he name a U.S. ambassador or envoy to the Arctic — someone who could coordinate work on the Arctic being done by more than 20 federal agencies and take the lead on increasing U.S. activities in the region.

The melting Arctic also is creating a new front of U.S. security concerns.

In the U.S., the Obama administration is consulting with governmental, business, industry and environmental officials, as well as the state of Alaska, to develop a plan to implement the U.S. strategy for the Arctic that President Barack Obama unveiled seven months ago.

The Arctic Ocean

As the Arctic ice melts, the area is predicted to become a center of strategic competition and economic activity. Last year, China signed a free trade agreement with Iceland and sent an icebreaker to the region despite having no viable claims in the Arctic.

Wildly rich

And in terms of preparation, America is lagging behind its potential competitors.

In front is Russia, which symbolically placed a Russian flag on the bottom of the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole in 2007. The country, one-fifth of which lies within the Arctic Circle, has by far the most amount of developed oil fields in the region.

Shipping throughout the Arctic will also take on unprecedented importance as the ice recedes — and the Kremlin has a plan for taking advantage of this changing geography.

Russia wants the Northern Sea Route, where traffic jumped from four vessels in 2010 to 71 in 2013, to eventually rival the Suez Canal as a passage between Europe and Asia. And it could: The Northern Sea Route from Europe to Asia takes only 35 days, compared to a 48-day journey between the continents via the Suez Canal.

At first stage, this will open the Arctic region for all year navigation. This gives Russia, the country with longest maritime Arctic border, a tremendous advantage in providing shipping and collecting passage and customs fees from international shipping as the Arctic becomes suitable for navigation without a need for ice-breaker fleet.

Issues

The US-Canada Contestation of the Arctic

The Government of Canada has sent to the Arctic some of their warships. They will patrol areas that Ottawa considers its territorial waters. In addition, it is ill-concealed demonstration of intentions: Ottawa makes it clear that the Arctic is a zone of its vital interests, including in disputes with Copenhagen.

Legal Handicap

UNCLOS is becoming a powerful legal mechanism for making and contesting claims in the Arctic. Even Arctic Council (a talking shop for governments with territories inside the Arctic Circle, and others who attend as observers) became much more influential and one of the few remaining border disputes there (between Norway and Russia) was settled. Russia is planning to use the legal weapon, using UNCLOS and the Artcic Council, to pursue its claims in the Arctic. Denmark has staked a claim to the North Pole, too. On December 15th, 2014, it said that, under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), some 900,000 square kilometres of the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland belongs to it (Greenland is a self-governing part of Denmark). The timing was happenstance. Claims under UNCLOS have to be made within ten years of ratification—and the convention became law in Denmark on December 16th 2004. But its claim conflicts with those of Russia, which has filed its own case under UNCLOS, and (almost certainly) Canada, which plans to assert sovereignty over part of the polar continental shelf. The United States as non-UNCLOS nation can face problems in the future in pursuing its national interest in the Arctic.

Lagging behind in Arctic Fleet

The funding battle often focuses on icebreakers. The Coast Guard has three: the medium-duty Healy, which is used mostly for scientific expeditions, and two heavy icebreakers, the Polar Sea and Polar Star.

Both heavy icebreakers were built in the 1970s and are past their 30-year service lives. The Polar Star, however, was recently given a $57 million overhaul, was tested in the Arctic this summer and currently is deployed in Antarctica. About $8 million has been allocated to study the possibility of building a new icebreaker, which would take nearly a decade and cost more than $1 billion. In the meantime, lawmakers from Washington and Alaska want Congress to rehabilitate the Polar Sea too.

Recommendations

Political component

In view of growing discrepancies between interests of US and Canada in the Arctic zone and competing claims with Denmark, US will be advised to pursue of policy of engagement with Norway since their national interests are aligned in the region. Russia obviously is adopting confrontational posture vis-à-vis Western countries of the Arctic basin. This issue should be confronted accordingly.

Legal component: Joining UNCLOS

As it has for years, the United States Navy regularly conducts Freedom of Navigation Operations (so-called FONOPS) to challenge excessive claims of territorial exclusivity. But as non-party to the treaty, the United States lacks any legal standing to bring its complaints to an international dispute resolution body. More broadly, U.S. Navy and Coast Guard officials complain, non-membership complicates everyday bilateral and multilateral cooperation with scores of international partners.

Practical or power projection component

The new administration should focus its efforts on creating a formidable polar fleet with new basing and maintenance facilities in order challenges of international competition in the Arctic. The Council on Arctic Future should be formed that would combine Federal and private, non-profit sectors to formulate and monitor a cohesive anf mult-pronged strategy on the Arrctic, so the United States in this new race for the last frontier would not find in the position of the last to know.

 


Dr. Alexander Murinson is Faculty Member at BAU International University,Team Member Bahçesehir University Global Policy Institute, Vize Leiter des Österreichischen Instituts für Kaukasusstudien.

 

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